Recently 10 St. Johns Technical High School students walked onto the factory floor of Carlisle Interconnect Technologies (CarlisleIT) to participate in the third phase of a joint program with the St. Johns County School District.

The program, which began in January, is designed to expose high school students to careers in manufacturing, increasing their marketability upon graduation by teaching them basic manufacturing principles.

“This internship has given our students the opportunity to see the full potential in the work place,” noted Wayne King, principal of St. Johns Technical High School. “Before the internship, many students did not have concrete goals for their future. Through the CarlisleIT experience, the students have developed into confident, focused individuals that see promising careers in manufacturing.”

The program consists of weekly 2 1/2 hour sessions, with each session having a topic of focus designed to introduce the students to manufacturing and prepare them for their internship in the factory. The training is conducted by engineers, technicians, trainers and operators based on the subject. The program’s initial phase, which lasted four weeks, introduced the students to the overviews of manufacturing, factory operations and career options and included a factory tour.

This was followed by an additional four weeks of classroom and hands-on instruction of basic factory skills and an introduction to Lean manufacturing concepts. The program culminates during the third phase where students are training and performing work tasks on the factory floor with direct one-on-one supervision by experienced CarlisleIT operators.

“We view this partnership with St. Johns Technical High School as an opportunity for us to invest in the youth of our community, and who knows, one of them may be a future engineering manager or even plant manager here,” said Pat Cusick, director of operations for CarlisleIT. “But we have to provide the window of opportunity for these youth to make this possible.”

CarlisleIT‘s St. Augustine facility manufactures wire and cable products that are used in commercial aircrafts for both power and signal applications.